


The Heir Of Gondor

by Velocity_Owl87



Series: The King's Daughter [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Marriage Contracts, Past Infidelity, Political Alliances, Politics, Pregnancy, Rebuilding, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3065012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velocity_Owl87/pseuds/Velocity_Owl87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aragorn, despite being secure on the throne, needs an heir. Despite his daughter being there, he has no choice but to play the game of politics and marry to produce an heir.</p><p>Lothiriel of Dol Amroth is the perfect choice and despite being young, knows all of the reasons for her marriage. </p><p>A marriage that neither will let become an emotionally sterile alliance if they can help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heir Of Gondor

**Author's Note:**

> The honest to God last instalment of this series. I didn't think I was going to write another piece, but a comment made me realize that even if Aragorn wanted it, he couldn't make his daughter an heir. He has to marry and produce an heir, but he also won't let himself trap someone like Denethor did with Finduilas. So he makes a compromise and hopes for the best. 
> 
> So here it is. Edited and proofed, but mistakes do appear and they will be fixed. 
> 
> Cheers!

Aragorn cradled his daughter’s face in his hands before kissing her forehead gently. Once he was finished, he pulled away and put his hands on his shoulders and smiled at her. He could feel it wasn’t as bright as the smiles he had always given her, but he couldn’t muster up a full effort.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon.”  He murmured as he brushed an errant lock of hair away from her face. Boromir smiled and let him tuck the hair behind her ear before she replied.

“Eomer and Faramir say it’s better I do. It wouldn’t do for too many to know.”

She looked down at Eomund who was still clutching at her skirts and staring at his grandfather in awe and then at his mother, before switching back again.

“My uncle is starting to get suspicious. Eomer knows and I think Eowyn already did from ages ago. Faramir just figured it out and I think that it’s better if we leave before it goes any further. They are family and to be trusted. But I still don’t want to take the risk.”

Aragorn nodded. “I know it and I am simply acting on sentimentality. It had been a long time since I saw you and my grandchildren. Who can blame me for wanting you close now that the dangers have all passed?”

“I know. I wish that we were still in Meduseld. Before any of this happened. Life was less complicated then.  Even with the Orc attacks on our borders.”

She added, her voice sardonic as she spoke. She wasn’t going to look at it through the haze of nostalgia. She wasn’t one for ruminating on the past. But she was right. It had been easier when they were hiding and building a life that he couldn’t never return to again. Boromir would be able to go back and rule beside Eomer and watch her children grow and take over the kingship and role of the Marshall in Rohan.

He would see them, he tried to comfort himself. At state functions and fosterings and celebrations. One thing he wouldn’t do was to keep the other nations at arm’s length. Although Sauron and Mordor were gone, the war had shown him that it was better to keep strong ties and keep the past from repeating and nipping the problem before it got too far. He wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of his forebears and he’d be damned if that was the legacy he would hand over to his daughter and her children.

Boromir’s smile turned sad as she faced her father. Impulsively, she turned and wrapped her arms around him.

“You won’t lose us. Any of us. I won’t walk away from you ever. None of them will.”

She breathed all of this into his ear before a noise from the hallway had her pulling away from him and picking up her son. Aragorn wanted to tell her that they shouldn’t have worried when they saw it was just Eomer that was now entering the room. But she had already moved to stand beside Eomer and was no longer just his daughter, but the Queen of Rohan. She was no longer only his and he resented the fact that he had to share her attention with not just Eomer and her children, but also with the world.

“Ready to go, love?” Eomer asked, his eyes giving nothing away as he spoke to his wife.

“Yes. We are. By your leave, King Elessar.”

Aragorn smiled and bowed. “You have it, King and Queen of the Rohirrim.”

He watched them leave until they were nothing but specks in the distance before returning to his study.

There was work to be done.

~*~*~*~*~

Faramir knocked on the door and stepped back when the door swung open to reveal a subdued Aragorn holding a parchment. At the sight of Faramir, his face brightened and he stepped forward to embrace his foster son.

“Faramir. Good to see you. How is Ithilien faring?”

Aragorn asked as he led Faramir into the study and gestured to a chair next to the large table scattered with the parchments and scrolls that made up the minituate of being a ruler of a newly established kingdom. Faramir took the proffered chair

Faramir sat at the table, his fingertips barely touching the scrolls and maps scattered over the surface. He resisted the urge to tap the surface as he waited for Aragorn to reply to the suggestion that he had brought forth at the bequest of the other princes and lords. Aragorn himself was looking down at the letter, his mouth a thin, white line in his still unlined face. He looked at it for a bit longer before finally looking up at Faramir and smiling briefly.

“Do you feel the same as your uncle and the rest of the council?” Aragorn asked him quietly.

Faramir shrugged one shoulder and made a face before he finally answered.

“Gondor needs an heir. One that can be put on the throne without anyone questioning his lineage.”

Aragorn winced at the answer, but only folded his hands on top of the letter. He couldn’t even negate Faramir’s point. Not when he was correct about the implications of an heir without a spotless record. But he was the king.

“We already have an heir. More than one, in fact. I don’t see why it is important for me to get married at this point in time.”

Faramir made a noise in the back of his throat and shook his head.

“My sister, you mean...No. She cannot be the heir of Gondor. Nor can either of her sons. Not when they are also the heirs of the Rohirrim.”  

“She is my daughter! She is by all rights and obligations my heir! Her sons could tie the kingdoms together in a way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise!”

Faramir shook his head. “And risk war with Rohan over the loss of their heirs? How about the people of Gondor?  They are under the impression she’s the daughter or Denethor. Bloodlines are everything to them and if they knew that she was your daughter...They would turn against her and you and everything that we are trying to build here. They won’t accept her. No matter how much they love you and are grateful for the end of Mordor’s threat. They won’t accept that.”

Faramir shook his head and sighed deeply, slumping back in his chair after his impassioned speech. Aragorn turned away and stayed quiet for long enough to make Faramir wonder if he had offended his father and king. He swallowed hard and coughed slightly, making Aragorn finally turn and look at him. Aragorn frowned at his foster son before speaking.

“I guess that I was naive in thinking that my bloodline would trump the speculation of her birth. She is my daughter first. She should have claim to a throne now that the Stewardship had been closed to her and you are the Prince of Ithilien.”

Faramir smiled weakly, but shook his head.

“And she won’t even have that. Not even her mother’s lineage would erase the fact that she’s not Denethor’s daughter after all. Maybe in Ithilien it could be done.”

Faramir added in a conciliatory tone. He wasn’t, by all means, trying to be contrary towards his surrogate father and his king. But he had been well-appraised of the situation by his uncle and once he had put two and two together, realized that it wasn’t meant to be. And even if his sister would have wanted the post, she wouldn’t ever desert the Rohirrim, who were her people more than the Gondorians had ever been.

Aragorn rubbed at the bridge of his nose impatiently. “So who would be the candidates?”

Faramir’s mouth twitched as he pulled out the other letter that had been sent with him and handed it to Aragorn.

“That’s the preliminary list. You probably would recognize most of them, since you wandered so much and so far.” Faramir added as Aragorn scanned the list of names that had been put forth by the councillors that he and his uncle had met with.

Aragorn snorted a faint laugh before he looked up at Faramir.

“Lothiriel is on the list? I thought she was already promised to a Rohirrim Lord.”

“He died in Pelennor Field.”

“Then if I am to produce an heir, I’d rather have someone whose character I know of, than an unknown and risk having a Beruthiel in my court.”

It was a cold and bloodless way to choose a bride. But he had known Lothiriel before Finduilas had died. He had known her due to the children of her brother that had come for state visits and played with Faramir and Boromir. She had been a little thing, looking like an exact replica of her aunt. But he remembered she had smiled and laughed a whole lot, her cheer infectious and making Finduilas break her melancholy, even if it was all too brief of a time when it happened.

But it had happened and the sudden onslaught of the memory of Finduilas laughing strengthened his resolve.

He shook himself off of those memories long enough to look at Faramir.

“I will marry Lothiriel, then and have her as the Queen of Gondor.”

~*~*~*~*~*

Lothiriel was nervous as she walked down the aisle of the throne room and forced herself to ignore the curious and admiring eyes on her as she made the trip. She focused only on the king, in his red and blue robes, as he stood at the end, his grey eyes shining brightly as he waited for her. He was smiling, she noted and that made her flush slightly with relief. He wouldn’t be as remote as she feared. Not with that much emotion showing on his face at her arrival.

Lothiriel wasn’t naive. She knew that it was strictly politics that had her walking down the aisle, wearing her mother’s black cloak interwoven with silver, green and white over a silver gown. She had been put forth as a candidate and for reasons known only to himself, the king had chosen her above others. She knew that he didn’t love her.

Maybe he was still in love with Arwen Undomiel, as many had whispered. But looking at her cousin Boromir, the Queen of Rohan, told her otherwise. It was his face and her aunt’s eyes that she saw as she stood there alongside King Eomer, the cloak of her mother on her shoulders and hiding the protrusion of her belly. Her sons stood beside her, a perfect mix of their parents: Elfwine grave and Eomund watching the spectacle with the wonderment of a small child.

She knew that the whispers were not quite the truth. But she wouldn’t ever put credence on them. Not when she had the proof so readily available to her. Arwen may not have been his love, but her aunt had come quite close to being his. And she knew exactly how much she resembled said aunt.

There were worse things to build a marriage on, she knew. At least she had that to start with.

~*~*~*~*~

When her toes had uncurled, and her breathing had gone back to normal, it was then that she was able to roll into his arms and inhale the musky and masculine scent of his. It hadn’t been at all what she had been expecting, despite knowing the mechanics. She had expected more pain and less pleasure than there had been. She didn’t know how he had done it, but he had made her see stars behind her eyelids before he had found his pleasure.

It was something she had heard whispered about, but guessed she wouldn’t ever experience. She was relieved that even though she wasn’t a love, he hadn’t stinted on making her pleasure an important part of their wedding night.

It was in that quiet time, after the afterglow had worn off that she scrounged up enough courage to ask the question that had been on her mind ever since she had been summoned to Gondor.

“Did you love her?”

Lothiriel asked later that night as they lay in the mussed up sheets and the sweat cooled on their bodies. She was curled up against him, his arm around her waist and his hand threading itself through her tangled curtain of hair when she broke the silence between them.

Aragorn paused in running his fingers through her hair.

“Either one of them? I did. In different ways, but I did. Arwen was my first love. Finduilas was a love that I never expected to ever have. She was a girl with so much potential. You used to make her laugh, I remember. She didn’t do that much after Faramir was born..”

Lothiriel nodded and lay there quietly. It wasn’t an answer she had expected to get, if she was honest.

“I didn’t pick you to replace either of them, if that’s what you’re wondering. I picked you because you showed FInduilas and Boromir a kindness I could not at the time.”

He sighed heavily and pressed a kiss on her forehead.

“I won’t insult you with platitudes. We’re both aware of the reason behind this marriage. We are strangers to each other. But I can at least promise you that it won’t always be like that. Nor will you have reason to look to Dol Amroth and long for the sea. That I can promise you right now.”

Lothiriel laughed softly, almost too quietly for him to hear it. But she did laugh.

“That’s more than I had ever expected from this marriage. So thank you for acknowledging that fact.”

“I’d have to be wilfully blind not to and that is one thing that I’ve never been. Nor will be.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Eomer found his wife asleep in the rocking chair, their daughter in her arms also asleep. He was loath to wake them, but she had made him promise to let her know the moment news would arrive from Gondor. He debated waiting until she woke up naturally to let her know what the parchment said, but was saved from it by his daughter, Finduilas, finally waking up and making snuffling whines of hunger.

“Boromir? Boromir?”

Boromir opened her eyes to mere slits before the small whines intensified and forced her to take action. With practiced hands, she pulled down the neckline of her gown and raised Finduilas and positioned her so that she’d latch on and nurse. Once the baby was giving off quiet grunts of satisfaction did she look up at her husband.

“You have another brother. Eldarion.”

~*~*~*~*~

Lothiriel’s smile was bright and triumphant, despite the exhaustion that Aragorn could see clearly in the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her hair had been brushed and braided loosely, her nightgown changed and the child swaddled in the time that he had stepped out to give the news to messengers and to the people of Gondor themselves. His heir had been born.

“Look at him. Isn’t he sweet?”

Lothiriel whispered as Aragorn came over, sat on the edge of the bed and peered into the swaddled bundle that held his first son.

And immediately experienced deja vu when he looked down at his face. The feeling got even stronger when the baby opened his eyes and blinked at him.

He looked like Boromir had and maybe it was a trick of the light, but he swore that in the moment he glanced up at his wife, he was looking at Finduilas rather than Lothiriel. He shook his head and the illusion was gone, leaving his wife and his son and the past safely put away where it had to be.

She wasn’t any of the other women in his life. They were gone and that was the end of that. She was his wife,  one of his trusted confidantes and the one that stood beside him when the rest of his family couldn’t. She was the mother of his son.

And maybe someday, she’d be the one he thought first thing before opening his eyes and starting his day.

“Yes. He is. Just like his mother.”

He leaned over and kissed her, a proper kiss that he hoped would convey what she meant to him.

It wasn’t love. Not just yet.

But it would be.

END.

 

 


End file.
